Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 23, 1994 TAG: 9411230132
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
President Clinton castigated Sen. Jesse Helms for ``inappropriate'' remarks about Clinton's standing with the military as the president's top aide suggested that Republican congressional leaders look elsewhere for a Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman.
The broadsides from the White House came after Helms released a statement Tuesday saying he regretted his remark that Clinton had ``better have a bodyguard'' if he travels to North Carolina.
In 22 years in the Senate, Helms had perfected the art of making political foes uncomfortable. But now, just as he's about to assume the chairmanship of the foreign affairs panel, he's got fellow Republican senators squirming.
Helms made the remark Monday in an interview with the Raleigh News and Observer. By midday Tuesday, he had issued a statement declaring that he had ``made a mistake ... which I shall not repeat.''
Clinton called Helms' remarks ``unwise and inappropriate.''
``That is a decision for them to make, not me,'' Clinton said when asked at a news conference what he thought. ``The president oversees the foreign policy of the United States, and the Republicans will decide in whom they will repose their trust and confidence.''
White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta was more blunt. ``I think the Republican leadership needs to take a very hard look at whether or not they want somebody with these kind of extreme views to chair one of the most important committees in the Congress of the United States,'' Panetta told reporters.
Asked Tuesday if Helms was fit to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - as he is line to in January - Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., replied: ``Senator Helms has been an outstanding senator.''
Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, who will be majority leader in the new Congress, trod gingerly, as well. ``I didn't see the entire statement,'' he said. ``My view is that the president of the United States is welcome to come to any state.''
Dole also said, ``I think pretty much that Jesse must have said most of this probably in jest.''
He shook his head when asked if there had been pressure to remove Helms from his soon-to-be chairmanship, and Sen. Arlen Specter, a moderate from Pennsylvania, said that just as Clinton is rightfully commander in chief, Helms is entitled by seniority to become chairman.
Helms said he had been speaking in an informal telephone interview, and had made an offhand remark ``in an attempt to emphasize how strongly the American people feel about the nation's declining defense capability.''
``Of course, I did not expect to be taken literally when, to emphasize the constant concerns I am hearing, I far too casually suggested that the president might need a bodyguard, or words to that effect,'' he said.
The Secret Service said it had requested a transcript of the interview. A spokesman, however, said it would be an overstatement to say that Helms is under investigation.
A perpetual critic of foreign policy as conducted by both parties, Helms, 73, has clashed with secretaries of states, used a senator's prerogative to hold up many diplomatic appointments and once referred to ``the yo-yos in the State Department.''
Last year, debating Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy about permitting AIDS victims to settle permanently in the United States, he said: ``Let me adjust my hearing aid. It could not accommodate the decibels of the senator from Massachusetts. I can't match him in decibels or Jezebels, or anything else, apparently.''
by CNB